Colville Tribes hail first salmon back to upper Columbia River

After decades of absence, the "chief of all of the rest of the fish" returned to the upper Columbia River Friday when a tribal elder slipped an adult salmon into the water of Lake Rufus Woods, followed by 29 more that had begun their journey years ago after coming into existence at a hatchery downriver.

A ceremonial song to reintroduce the chinook echoed back from the Douglas County side of the river Friday morning at the Colville Tribes' campgrounds near commercial fish-raising pens along Lake Rufus Woods, upstream from Chief Joseph Dam.

A hundred or more people listened and waited, then helped.

Two lines formed from the hatchery truck on the hill to the river below. As hatchery workers netted big chinook from the tank on the truck and placed them in rubber "boots," the people passed them, one by one, down to the river.

As a song and small drum beat across the waters silently slipping by, tribal elder Wendle George placed the first salmon in the river, and people whooped celebration cries.

"A lot of powerful emotions down there," recalled singer and drummer Dan Nanamkin later in the morning, which had been infused with talk of spirit and DNA, of heritage and tradition, of modern science and challenges to come.

"Watch out, that's a tough one!" said Colville Tribal Fish and Wildlife Director Randy Friedlander as he handed a thrashing black bag off to the line.

Before the building of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams, salmon comprised 70 percent of the diet of the Colvilles, said Colville Business Council Chairman Rodney Cawston. But on this day of the first "cultural release" of salmon in the upper Columbia, several stressed the spiritual significance of the fish at the center of the culture of people whose elders told the stories every winter for thousands of years of how, fulfilling its purpose in life, the "chief of all of the fish," along with other plants and animals, had prepared the land for the coming of people.

Such cultural releases are part of the first phase of a plan to reintroduce the fish, as outlined by the Upper Columbia United Tribes.

The second such release of chinook to the upper Columbia is set for this Friday at 10 a.m., at the Keller Boat Launch along SR-21.

That release will bring salmon back behind Grand Coulee Dam, which first stopped the return of salmon from the ocean.

Any lasting reintroduction won't be easy, and speakers acknowledged challenges.

"But today, the river isn't the same as it once was," Cawston said. "And we know that the nutrient cycling ... from a scientific perspective, hasn't occurred in over 80 years. And so all of those plants and animals that sustain their lives, with the salmon coming up in the river, that purpose is no longer fulfilled."

Cawston said many Colvilles, along with other tribes and state and federal agencies, have been working hard to address coming challenges.

The Colvilles' Chief Joseph Hatchery, built in 2013 at Bridgeport for $50 million, will eventually produce up to 2.9 million "smolts" a year for the Columbia to carry out to sea. The chinook introduced Friday, however, came from Douglas County PUD's hatchery at Wells Dam after spending three to five years in the Pacific Ocean.

Using hatchery fish solves several problems, reintroduction advocates say, including drawing from a healthy, ready supply and avoiding legal issues upstream around the Endangered Species Act.

But plans to meet other problems remain vague. New methods or technologies may be introduced to bring the salmon upstream. A Seattle company has reportedly successfully tested its "whoosh" system that sucks them through a pressurized tube over dams, for instance.

Efforts to date have cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars," notes an FAQ handed out Friday, and "we expect that studies and facilities in Phase 2 will cost millions."

Money might come within the context of a new Columbia River treaty being negotiated with Canada (so, from Congress), from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's programs (from electric ratepayers), or from tribal programs, the FAQ says.

Handouts did not address the question of getting young salmon back downstream. Salmon smolts only like to swim against the current, and the slackwater behind dams doesn't provide much.

"Even though it's just a limited amount of fish that we're returning back into this river, it's a huge step," Cawston said. "It's a very sacred day for us as people to be able to be here to witness this."

"I'm hopeful," added Councilmember Joel Boyd, "that ... in the near future we won't have to transport the salmon, but that they'll just flourish and make it ... all the way up into the border of Canada."

Colville Tribes Bring Salmon Back to Lake Rufus Woods from The Star on Vimeo.

First Salmon Back from The Star on Vimeo.

This story has been updated to add the videos and to reflect a change in plans for the reintroduction of salmon to Lake Roosevelt Aug. 16. The event has moved from Geezer Beach behind Grand Coulee Dam to the Keller Boat Launch.